A R DESAI.pptx

• Irawati Karve was the first
woman anthropologist of
India and the founder of
sociology in Pune
university.
• Her range of work
stretched from mapping
kinship and caste to
surveys on the
contemporary status of
women.
2

• To interpret the inner
integration of Hindu
society she related
Hindu mythologies with
modern customs
• The same enterprise
was again found in the
work ‘Yuganta’ (1967)
which was written in
Marathi.
3

• It won Sahitya Academy
Prize as the best book of
that year.
• In the book Yuganta: The
End of ann Epoch, Irawati
Karve Karve studied the
characters and society in
Mahabharata.
• The subject of the book is
secular, scientific and
anthropological in the
widest sense.
4

• Irawati Karve was an
Indian anthropologist.
She was born in Mynjan
in Burma and educated
in Pune
• she married into the
Karvés who were
educators and social
reformers.
5

• She did B.A. in Philosophy
and M.A. in Sociology
(1928) from Bombay
University before
proceeding to Germany
for advanced studies.
• For an outstanding
research in anthropology,
the Berlin University
conferred on her the D.
Phil degree in 1930
6

• She acquired knowledge
of both social and
physical anthropology.
• In 1939, Karve joined the
Deccan College
Postgraduate and
Research Institute of
Pune as Head of the
Department of Sociology
and Anthropology
7

• She served as the Head
of the Department of
Sociology and
Anthropology at Deccan
College till her
retirement.
• She presided over the
Anthropology Section of
the Indian Science
Congress in 1939
8

CENTRAL IDEAS
• Karve’s’s central ideas
focused on Hindu society
and its caste system as well
as kinship organization in
India.
• Her research interests were
concentrated on the : racial
composition of the Indian
population; kinship
organization in India; origin
of caste; and sociological
study of the rural and urban
communities
9

Hindu Society
• Hindu Society – an
interpretation is a study of
Hindu society based on data
which Karve had collected
in her field trips, and her
study of pertinent texts in
Hindi, Marathi, Sanskrit, Pali
and Prakrit.
• she discussed the pre-Aryan
existence of the caste
system in Hinduism, and
traced its development to
its present form.
10

• According to Irawati
Karve, 'The Indian caste
society is a society
made of
semiindependent units,
each having its own
traditional pattern of
behaviour.
• This has resulted in a
multiplicity of norms
and behaviour.
11

• She calls caste an
endogamous kinship
group which are distinct
from each other
• Karve was of the view
that the cultural
problems before India
revolve around region,
caste and family.
12

• She felt that it was difficult
to evolve a common
language, uniform civil code
and abolish caste.
• She looked upon the task of
welding the sub-continent
through uniformity would
destroy valuable cultural
traits of the old way of life.
• These valuable traits are
described by Karve as
tolerance and an awareness
of diversty.
13

Kinship Organization
• Karve’s work, Kinship
Organization in India
(Deccan College, 1953)
is a study of various
social institutions in
India. Karve mapped
kinship patterns in India
on to linguistic zones
14

(i) Indo-European or
Sanskritic organisation in
the Northern zone;
(ii) Dravidian kinship in the
southern zone;
(iii) A central zone of mixed
patterns (e.g. found in
Maharashtra); and
(iv) Mundari kinship systems
in the east.
15

• Within each linguistic
region, there are
variations between
castes and subcastes.
• Karve notes that in the
north women are
separated from their
families at an early age
and sent-off to live with
unknown in-laws far
away
16

• whereas in the south, a
girl is among her relatives
even after marriage.
• The kinship organization
in the central zone shows
greater internal variation
than the north with some
castes allowing cross-
cousin marriage in one
direction (to the mother’s
brother’s daughter) as in
the south
17

• In almost all castes in
the northern zone,
according to Karve the
marriage between
cousins is prohibited.
• According to Irawati
Karve, 'A joint family is a
group of people who
live under one roof, eat
food cooked at one
hearth
18

• hold property in
common, who participate
in common worship and
are related to each other
as some particular type of
kindred.'
• Karve thus provides an
understanding of the
structure of Indian society
and its range of social
arrangements in her
study of kingship
organization.
19

• Irawati Karve's (1953)
paper The Kinship Map of
India highlights the
customs of marrying close
kin in South India in
contrast to the principle
of extended exchange in
North India that enables
women to frequent their
natal families, thereby
reducing the stress faced
by married women
20

• On caste, Karve
predominantly addressed
two themes, namely, the
origin of caste and the
unit of analysis, and
secondly that the smallest
endogamous unit or jati,
was a product of the
breaking up of a larger
group caused by
occupational
diversification.
21

• Karve differs from Ghurye
who had argued that
caste in India is a
Brahminical product of
Indo-Aryan culture,
spread by diffusion to
other parts of India.
Karve, on the other
collected anthropometric
masruements such as
blood samples, eye
colour, etc to argue that it
was the sub-caste
22

• Karve has made
significant contributions
in the form of socio-
economic surveys or
policy studies
• She argued that tribals
are not different from
other parts of the Indian
population and that it
would be wrong to create
an entirely new entity
based on ‘primitiveness’.
23

• Her view was that tribals
should be helped to
advance and assimilate and
no external codes should be
imposed on them.
• Karve observed that kinship
organization is influenced
and strengthened by the
caste system and both these
conform to certain patterns
found in different linguistic
regions.
24

• The family in the majority
of regions in India is an
autonomous unit with its
own observances.
• The caste in its turn is
also a closed autonomous
unit which has certain
limited contacts with
other similar units and
which controls the
behaviour of families in
certain respects.
25

• Different castes living in
the same locality have
different rules as
regards marriage, have
different heredity
occupations and
different Gods.
• The joint family
provided economic and
social security
26

• The rise of industrial
cities and employment
opportunities have
resulted in a loosening
of the bonds of joint
family and of the village
community.
27

Yuganta
• Irawati Karve’s Yuganta, a
retelling of The
Mahabharata is a literary
and sociological text
blending history, culture
and philosophy of the
ancient times.
• Irawati Karve says the
central figures of the
Mahabharata are neither
wholly good, nor wholly
bad, but a blend of both.
28

• She examines each one of
the characters and
unravels the working of a
wide range of human
emotions- both positive
and negative.
• In her presentation she
adopts a matter of fact
tone without
commenting on the
virtues and vices of the
characters.
•
29

• She makes a parallel
study of the literary text
and the cultural, historical
and civilizational aspects
of the society
• Irawati presents different
characters and their
actions not subjectively
through a moral prism
but objectively through
the events that impacted
and shaped the destiny of
different people.
30

• Irawati as a sociologist
makes a study of
human social behaviour.
As an anthropologist,
she makes an insightful
study of the physical,
social, and cultural
development of
humans.
31

IMPORTANT WORKS
• Kinship Organization in
India (1953)
• Hindu Society: An
Interpretation (1961)
• Maharashtra: Land and
its People (1968)
• Yuganta: The End of an
Epoch (1969)
32

• Akshay Ramanlal Desai
was born on April 16,
2015 in Nadiad in
Gujarat.
• Ramanlal Desai, apart
from being an officer of
the Baroda state, was
also a well-known
writer who wrote many
novels depicting the
lives of the peasantry
34

• He also had a great
admiration for Gandhi
and some leaning
towards Fabian
socialism.
• His deep political
consciousness came
from a family that was
highly sensitive to social
oppression
35

• In 1947, he got married
to Neera Desai who
played a pioneering role
in the growth of
Women’s Studies in
India.
• He began his teaching
career as a lecturer in
Siddharth College in
Bombay1946
•
36

• joined the Department
of Sociology, University
of Bombay in 1951,
became Professor and
Head of the
Department in 1969
and resigned from the
Department in 1976
37

• Desai was appointed a
Senior Fellow and a
National Fellow in the
Indian Council of Social
Science Research from
1973-75 and 1981-85
respectively.
38

• He was President of the
Indian Sociological
Society in 1980-81 and
Gujarat Sociological
Society in 1988-90
• He was the only Indian
sociologist who was
active in politics
39

• He was also a member
of different non-
mainstream left political
parties at different
points of time, even
though during his early
days in the 1930s
• he was a member of the
Communist Party of
India for a brief period
40

• He was a committed
Marxist since his early
undergraduate student
days and remained one
till his death in 1994.
• The 1930s was also the
decade when a left
alternative to the
mainstream nationalism
represented by the
Congress was also
emerging.
41

• There were ideological
conflicts between the
relatively more left
oriented sections within
the Congress and that
of the right oriented
sections.
• The kisan movement
had started in Gujarat in
the 1930s
42

• Baroda was an
important centre for
radical and left politics
including the activists of
the nascent Communist
Party
• It is said that Akshay
Desai was suspended
for his activities from
his college in Baroda.
•
43

• He moved to Surat and
then to Bombay to
pursue his studies and
his activities
• Bombay was the nerve
centre of trade union
activism and also the
growing communist
activity.
44

• There was a struggle for
gaining influence over the
anti-colonial movement
among the various
ideological and political
currents.
• The workers in the textile
mills in Bombay, jute mills in
Calcutta and mine workers
were on the path of
struggle against inhuman
exploitation, exhausting
working hours and low
wages
45

• The trade union
movement was in the
forefront of both the
struggle of the workers
and the nationalist
movement.
• This was also the period
of the Great Depression
46

• The industrial recession
that followed it hit
major industries and
this gave a further fillip
to the militancy in the
labour movement. The
communist presence
and leadership of the
labour movement
deepened during this
period.
47

• There was a
mushrooming of people’s
organisations, ranging
from trade unions, Kisan
Sabhas, students’
federations, women’s
organisations and cultural
and literary forums, all of
which were imbued with
a strong anti-colonial
consciousness.
48

• Desai got involved in the
communist movement
and joined the
Communist Party in 1934.
• But he left the
Communist Party after a
brief period of five years
since he found the
bureaucratic structure of
the party suffocating.
49

• he opposed the change
in the Party’s stand
regarding support to
British war efforts in
India when the Soviet
Union was attacked by
Nazi Germany in 1939.
50

• He resigned from the
party in 1939.
• Desai continued to
pursue his research and
activism through his
entire teaching career
51

CENTRAL IDEAS
• Indian Nationalism
• Nationalism was the
canvas and the
backdrop against which
social sciences took
root in India.
• A large part of his work
was based on the
method of historical
materialism.
52

• His doctoral work was
published as a book
titled, Social Background
of Indian Nationalism.
• he brought out another
volume, Recent Trends in
Indian Nationalism.
• Originally his doctoral
work, the former was
published in 1946 and has
run into several editions
53

• Desai analyses the various
forces at work at the time
and the changes brought
about by colonial policies
in the basic structure of
Indian society.
• He views nationalism as a
historical category, a
modern phenomenon
which comes into
existence at a certain
point in history.
54

• In India, it evolved as
result of a combination of
objective factors and
subjective factors when
the Indian people were
political subjects of the
British Empire.
• The nation that emerged
was not a homogeneous
one; it comprised of
different classes that
arose in the course of
colonial intervention.
55

• British colonial rule
initiated a deep structural
transformation in Indian
society which led it to a
new path of
development,
• capitalist development
and initiated changes in
almost spheres of Indian
social life, from modern
means of transport and
communication
56

• capitalist property
relations in land, the
establishing of a
centralised state,
introduction of western
education, new forms
of administration and
even limited forms of
self rule at the
provincial levels
57

• It destroyed the older
order and unleashed
many dynamic new
forces which
revolutionised Indian
society, though to sub-
serve its own interest,
which was the colonial
exploitation of India
58

• Desai analyses that.
Marx had argued that
capitalism would play
revolutionary role in
altering the nature of
the productive forces in
Indian society
characterized by the
caste system.
59

• Desai was clear that
colonial rule did not
play a revolutionary role
since it destroyed the
very institutions that
could facilitate the
growth of capitalism,
i.e. the factories of the
pre-capitalist period.
60

• Desai’s concern was also
to highlight the specificity
of the Indian pre-
capitalist social formation
with its caste system
• He outlines the social
consequences of the
transformation of
agriculture, the decline of
town handicrafts and the
decline and destruction of
village artisan industries
61

• While there were
various phases of Indian
nationalism, it was the
last phase begun in
1918 under the
leadership of Gandhi
that was critical for the
nationalist movement.
62

• n Recent Trends in
Indian Nationalism
(1960), Desai assesses
the path of
development and sums
up the significant
characteristics of the
postindependence
trajectory
63

• He highlights the
uneven nature of
capitalist development
and a bourgeoisie tied
to feudal and semi-
feudal origins.
• the state apparatus
inherited at
independence was
almost a replica of the
colonial state apparatus
64

• since independence
was not a genuine
independence but a
transfer of power in
which the Indian
National Congress,
heavily influenced by
business and capitalist
interests, played a
leading role.
65

• For Desai, the choice of the
path of development was
clear: it was bourgeois
industrialization versus
socialist industrialization.
• He argues that a clear
distinction between the two is
necessary since this would
result in qualitatively different
types of social, institutional,
ideological and cultural
patterns and thereby the kind
of structural pattern of the
society
66

• In the pre-
Independence period,
colonialism and
nationalism as concepts
and fields of action
were central to Desai’s
intellectual and political
engagement
67

• in the post-
Independence years it
was the character of the
State and the A R Desai
path of the
development
68

Role of the State in Capitalist
Transformation in India
• In exploring the post-
Independence period,
the two concepts that
recur consistently are
the State and its crucial
role in social and
political transformation,
specifically in rural
transformation and the
question of the path of
development.
69

• Contrary to the
expectations of the
nationalist movement,
the State in the post-
independence period
initiates a capitalist
process of
transformation.
70

• There is continuity between
his earlier work – Social
Background of Indian
Nationalism – wherein he
developed Marxian
historical method and his
later work wherein he
focused on the class
character of the State and
the nature of classes that
characterise the society and
their relationship to the
State
71

• In the two edited
volumes, Rural Sociology
in India (1969) and
Peasant Struggles in India
(1979), Desai has put
together a rich collection
of articles and reports
that map the changes in
rural society over many
decades
72

• Desai has woven all the
material across
centuries and regions to
highlight the major
socio-economic policies
and processes initiated
by the State specifically
focusing attention on
their impact on the
peasantry
73

• Desai analyses the
policies implemented
by the State, the main
thrust of which has
been to transform
agrarian structure from
pre-capitalist to
capitalist relationships.
74

• Agrarian society and
relationships have been
transformed due to
conscious State
intervention
• create a class of
agricultural capitalists,
rich farmers and middle
peasant proprietors
directly linked to the
State
75

• This was accomplished
through ‘development’
programmes and land
legislations, leading to
differentiation among the
peasantry, with the
emergence of a class of
agricultural capitalists,
rich peasants and
simultaneously the
emergence of a
pauperized, hungry,
landless rural proletariat
76

Path of Development
• Two of the volumes:
State and Society in
India (1975) and India’s
Path of Development: A
Marxist Approach
(1984) comprise his
writings on the path of
development and the
nature of the social
transformation in India.
77

• In the volume, State and
Society in India, he
critically examines the
assumptions underlying
the modernization thesis
which was propounded
by the academic
establishment and
shaped the content of the
curriculum in the
expanding educational
apparatus.
78

• The principal focus of
his work is the capitalist
transformation of India
and the role of the State
as a prime mover in this
process.
• The relationship
between the capitalist
class and the State, the
moulding of different
institutions
79

• legal framework and
administrative apparatus
for facilitating capitalist
development, along with
the major policy
initiatives, the public
sector, planning as a
major instrument, the
mixed economy and even
the welfare state are all
designed to facilitate
capitalist development
80

• India’s Path of
Development: A Marxist
Approach, he engages
seriously with the
practice of Marxism in
India and with the
Communist parties’
theory and practice.
81

• The main thrust of his
critique of the
Communist Parties is
the critique of the two
stage revolution, i.e. a
democratic stage when
the bourgeois
democratic tasks would
be completed and a
socialist stage which
would follow
82

Understanding Indian Society from
Marxian Approach
• Desai’s principal
purpose was to
understand Indian
society from a Marxist
point of view and to
apply the Marxian
method in studying the
various contradictions
of Indian society with
the aim of transforming
the society
83

• Contradictions does not
mean merely conflict or
tensions but refers to the
structural and systemic
conflicts that shape the
basic structure of the
society, like, between
working class and the
bourgeoisie or that
between the peasantry
and landlordism.
84

IMPORTANT WORKS
(i) Recent Trends in Indian
Nationalism (1960)
(ii) Rural Sociology in India
(1969)
(iii) State and Society in
India:Essays in Dissent
(1975)
(iv) India’s Path of
Development: A Marxist
Approach (1984)
85

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